June 3, 2026

Trezor disclosed on June 3, 2026 that the TROPIC01 Secure Element chip inside its flagship Safe 7 hardware wallet carries a hardware-level vulnerability that cannot be fixed with a firmware update. The flaw was discovered not by Trezor's own engineers but by the Ledger Donjon team — the security research arm of Trezor's direct rival.

Ledger Donjon received a TROPIC01 chip from Tropic Square, the open-source chip maker behind the component, for an independent audit. In late January 2026 the team informed Tropic Square that it had executed a successful laser fault injection attack against the chip and extracted one of three "secrets" that protect a user's PIN, effectively reducing three layers of hardware protection to two. Building on that finding, Tropic Square's own engineers then identified a more complex method to extract one additional secret, affecting the chip's PIN-related functions.

Because the flaw is in the chip's physical design, no firmware patch is possible. Trezor is explicit in its blog post: "As this attack targets the hardware, a full firmware fix cannot be applied remotely to the Trezor Safe 7 device."

The practical threat remains narrow. Executing the attack requires physical possession of the device, full disassembly including desoldering, backside decapsulation of the chip package, and specialized laboratory equipment. Even if an attacker cleared all those barriers, two additional layers of physical security would still protect the PIN and wallet backup. Trezor describes the TROPIC01 chip as "an effective barrier that requires significant time and effort to exploit." Blockchain security firm Cyvers, speaking to Decrypt, called the attack "highly impractical."

Critically, a user's private keys are not stored in the TROPIC01 chip at all. Trezor says this is by design: "to ensure there is no single point of failure in the device." No successful real-world theft of funds has been tied to this vulnerability.

Trezor framed the disclosure as a feature of its open-source hardware architecture, not a liability. The company argues that using an auditable chip like TROPIC01 — the first Secure Element that anyone can inspect — makes vulnerabilities findable and fixable over time, whereas closed-chip designs hide risks behind non-disclosure agreements. "We don't believe obscurity equals security," the post reads. "Layered, open-source protection helps identify vulnerabilities and strengthens crypto security over time." Trezor publicly thanked the Ledger Donjon team for their "open and professional manner."

The irony is hard to miss: Ledger, whose own closed Secure Element architecture Trezor has criticized for years, found the hardware flaw in Trezor's open chip. Trezor has not responded to questions about whether it will offer refunds to Safe 7 owners.

Sources: Trezor blog, June 3, 2026; Decrypt, June 3, 2026; Trezor on X, June 3, 2026